Plastic container compacting device

ABSTRACT

A new plastic container compacting device, which is mainly used individually, and has as its main object to facilitate the collection of PET containers in a clean and efficient manner, by reducing their volume and the consequent benefits in the collection, transport and stowage stages thereof. Said new plastic container compacting device provides a fixed base on a straight plane (G) on which the PET container or bottle to be compacted is placed and which by means of a cap (A), the tight closures (B) and the head (D) firmly secures the container or the bottle to the device being operated. Having previously removed the cap from the latter, the operation of the lever (C) causes in turn that of the rod (E) and the latter that of the pushing piston (F), said operation results in a firm compaction resulting from the force applied in combination with the plastic submitted to it.

[0001] The Utility Patent the invention and patentability of which are claimed relates to a new plastic container compacting device, wich is mainly used individually, and has as its main object to facilitate the collection of PET containers in a clean and efficient manner, by reducing their volume and the consequent benefits in the collection, transport and stowage stages thereof.

[0002] The great Latin American cities—to a greater or lesser extent—have got serious environmental problems; particularly in the aspects related to management of solid garbage. The absence of an efficient technology for the recovery of containers and packaging of various materials has caused—for example in the garbage in Montevideo—a notorious increase in weight and volume thereof.

[0003] In order to consider the alternative of recovery of the containers discarded in such a way, avoinding their final disposal as garbage, the question of stowage or deposition of the containers collected with recycling purposes has been discussed. In the recent years not only the weight and volume of garbage have increased, but a significant change in its composition has occurred as well. The industry has decided to make a generalized use of disposable containers (plastic and glass bottles, bags, plastic containers for eggs, tetrabrick cases, steel and aluminium cans, etc.), substancially changing the composition of global garbage, the one that has most suddenly grown being the use of polyethylene terephthalate bottles (PET plastic).

[0004] This process of growth has accelerated in Uruguay from the middle of the year 1996, when the main mineral water and fizzy drink selling companies gradually stopped using glass bottles and replaced them with returnable and non-returnable PET bottles.

[0005] Nevertheless, the cost-benefit equation results in the fact that it is neither easy nor profitable to form a market of suppliers who buy PET and sell it to the industry so that it may be recycled; and if they exist, there are still two great limitations for the development thereof: the difficulty to handle such large volumes, and the low price of dirty and unclassified PET.

[0006] The key thus resides in the accumulation of large volumes, and this is impossible without a collection system that allows to recover, through the same selling circuit, a significant percentage of the 500,000 PET bottles that are discarded daily only in Montevideo. Fifty tons of PET are thus daily discarded as garbage.

[0007] Besides, drink and mineral water bottles generally use three different plastics: PET for bottles, polyethylene for caps and and low density polyethylene for labels, when the bottle is not painted or uses paper tapes. The same bottles are also used for other multiple purposes (oil, cleaning articles, etc.) displacing another very much resisted plstic, as PVC.

[0008] PET is only one of the plastic residues, for, no less than another 100 tons of other plastics, almost all of which are likely to be recovered for use or recycling, are taken to the city dump, and are buried daily. Thus, no less than 150 tons of plastics are daily classified, packed, washed, crushed, ground, agglutinated, pelletized, flaked, put into bags, etc., representing several million dollars which are annualy buried only in the usine of the city of Motevideo.

[0009] Today there exist no such compactation techniques as the one resulting from the device claimed herein. Garbage collector companies usually recommend removing the cap from the PET bottles prior to their deposition in a garbage can, so that the compactation task is made easier for the compactor trucks and the volume thereof is consequently reduced. Besides, there are about 200 PET bottle reservoirs, where said products are stowed in their original shape and volume, the financial circuit being thus inefficient.

[0010] On the contrary, the volume of the bottle undergoing the compactation operation performed by the device of this invention, is minimized, increasing the possibilities of stowage and accumulation in terms of any given physical space. According to the drawing attached hereto with illustrative purposes, on a stiff and flat plane a fixed base (G) has been provided, on which the PET bottle to be compacted is placed, and which, by means of the cap (A), the tight closures (B) and the head (D), firmly secures the bottle to the device. Having previously removed the cap from the latter, the operation of the lever (C) causes in turn that of the rod (E) and the latter that of the pushing piston (F), said operation results in a firm compactation resulting from the force applied in combination with the plastic submitted to it.

[0011] Finally, once the cap of the bottle has been screwed again on it, the operation descrided has a vacuum effect inside the bottle, which ensures that the volume thus achieved is kept. 

1. What is claimed as patentable is a new plastic container compacting device, characterized in that it provides a fixed base on a straight plane—on which the container to be compacted is placed—and which by means of a cap and tight closures secures the container to the device being operated, as described in the Specification and Drawings attached hereto.
 2. What is claimed as patentable is a new plastic container compacting device, according to the preceding claim, further characterized by the operation of the lever, and the latter in turn moves a pushing piston which moves against the base of the container, as described in the Specification and Drawings attached hereto with illustrative purposes. 